It’s funny, but yesterday felt more like we fell back an hour to me. The day seemed to last a long time – which is pretty unusual for a Sunday (especially one where I actually got some things accomplished). Today is making up for it, though, as I feel like somebody set the clock ahead by about five hours. I feel all kinds of crappy and tired, and am wondering just how the hell I’m gonna make it through the day. I also managed to gouge a nice chunk of flesh out of the inside of my elbow (is there an actual term for that part of one’s anatomy) in one of those “oh, I guess that wasn’t the last step on the ladder” things. It’s kind of annoying, since the skin seems to magically heal itself when my arm is bent, only to be torn apart again when I straighten it.

There doesn’t seem to be much going on in the news this morning. We’re mad at Israel, but not to worry. I’m sure it’s just a lover’s spat, and soon we’ll kiss and make up. They say we’re gonna get a health care reform law this week. Yeah, OK. I’ll believe it when I see it. Though I will say that the relentless onslaught of anti-reform ads seems to have ended. Haven’t seen one this morning (yet). That may be a sign that this is finally over. That, and l’il Lindsey Graham being in a petulant frenzy over the Democrats deigning to pass legislation in a “sleazy” manner. I think Lindsey needs a tickle hug.

Of course, we’ve all heard by now that Peter Graves passed away. To many (especially old people), he’s best known as the host of “Biography.” To people my age, he is, of course, both Jim Phelps and the pilot – Captain Clarence Oveur – from the “Airplane” movies (released, ironically, the same year that SU was last a #1 seed in the NCAA hoops tourney; note that I can tie pretty much anything to Syracuse with very little effort). I don’t think Victor ever did tell him what their vector was.

My favorite scene from Airplane is when Lloyd Bridges brings his kid to work and lets him clear planes for takeoff. Or do I have that mixed up with another movie?

Peter Graves was also the kid brother of James Arness (best known, of course, as “The Thing” in Howard Hawks’ “The Thing from Another Planet” – not to be mistaken for Thing T. Thing from the Addams Family [whose home design may or may not have been inspired by this building on the SU campus, which Charles Addams would have seen as a Colgate student when attending SU/Colgate football games, which was a big rivalry back in the day; see? told ya], played by Ted Cassidy, which is why you never saw Lurch and Thing together, and also starring Jackie Coogan, whose father was born in Syracuse [see how easy it is?] as Uncle Fester – later remade by John Carpenter, and starring, among others, Wilford Brimley, who later went on to be famous for gettin’ the diabeetus).

In perhaps his finest work, Peter Graves starred as Dr. Douglas Martin in “Killers from Space,” which – along with several other of his movies – can be seen on The Film Crew and MST3K). For me, I’ll always remember Graves as that dirty, no-good Nazi spy in Stalag 17 (directed by Billy Wilder, brother of W. Lee Wilder, who directed Graves in Killers from Space, and also starring William Holden, who escaped from the Nazis and then went on to blow up the bridge on the river Kwai).

Oh, I spoke too soon. There goes another anti-HCR ad. A good reason to go to work, I guess.